Barge Carries Methanol from Bogibeel to Dhaka

The barge DLB Patkai will travel about 768 kilometres down National Waterway-2 on the Brahmaputra River in India to the Indo-Bangladesh border, then continue along the Indo-Bangladesh Protocol Route to reach Dhaka. Dibrugarh was once among the busiest river ports in eastern India. Government steamers had reached the town from Calcutta, now Kolkata, by 1856. The Dibru-Sadiya Railway began operating from the Dibrugarh steamer ghat in 1882. By 1913, steamers sailed up the Brahmaputra to the town daily, carrying tea, timber and passengers. A 1950 earthquake disturbed the riverbed at Dibrugarh. The ghat closed on October 15, 1956, as tea shipments shifted to rail. The 1947 partition had cut the river route, forcing Assam's goods to pass through East Pakistan to reach Calcutta. This week's shipment became possible after customs and immigration complexes were set up at Bogibeel and Dhubri recently. The methanol is produced by state-owned Assam Petro-Chemicals Ltd. at Namrup. Regular methanol shipments to Bangladesh are planned.

Cargo on India's national waterways rose from 18 million metric tons in fiscal 2013-14 to 218 million metric tons in 2025-26. More than 68 billion rupees, about $770 million, is being invested in waterways across the Northeast. The vessel will cover a total distance of 1,300 kms from Bogibeel, Dibrugarh to Narayanganj, Dhaka, carrying 540 metric tons of methanol bound for Pangaon Port. Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal flagged off the vessel DLB Patkai, pushed by the tug Kushal Konwar, from Bogibeel. The shipment, which left Bogibeel Terminal in Dibrugarh for Dhaka, is the first cargo shipped from upper Assam to a foreign port since India's independence in 1947.